Azeotrope
by Tequila0Mockingbird
Summary: A series of oneshots focusing mostly on the rather unexplored science aspect of FMA. Light EdWin for the most part, will occasionally include other characters. Chapters individually rated. Formerly "Scientists in the Kitchen."
1. Scientists in the Kitchen

**Scientists in the Kitchen**

_Word count:_ 142  
_Pairing/Rating:_ Light EdWin, G

_Author's note:_ You may have noticed some stuff changed. I decided I like this sciency theme so much, I'm gonna do a series of 'em, so I changed the title and description to reflect that. This particular one is inspired by an argument between two chemistry people when cooking breakfast. Please read and review!

Edward was a good cook. Edward being Edward, this was rather surprising. So, Winry was skeptical when she came downstairs one morning to have a plate of eggs and bacon thrust in front of her. She eyed it with what she felt was a perfectly justifiable suspicion.

"Alchemy? she asked.

He gave her a slightly affronted look.

"What do you take me for?"

Over breakfast, he explained the process of protein denaturation and solubility in eggs, saturated and unsaturated hydrocarbon chains in bacon, and popular misconceptions ("Alchemy did _not_ start in the kitchen! It began in medicine with the first attempt to mix two elements...") and above all, how to take advantage of this knowledge when cooking.

As they washed the dishes, she began to think that there was something to alchemy behind the smoke and mirrors after all.


	2. Scientists on Paper

**Scientists on Paper**

_Word count_: 437  
_Pairing/Rating:_ Light EdWin, G (R for intense cursing if you're a Liberal Arts major, hehe)

_Author's Note:_ Inspired after flipping through some old school notebooks and seeing bits of information and my notes in the margins (though my comments on organic chemistry are considerably more R-rated than Edward's). Despite my best efforts to forget ochem and pchem, here they are, resurging again. Please read and review, and tell me if you see any mistakes.

She sighed, and poked his shoulder. No response. Considering how lightly Ed slept, she strongly suspected he was ignoring her out of sheer laziness.

She poked again, and slid her hand over his shoulder as she leaned down to whisper in his ear.

"Ed, wake up."

His eyes opened and he stared at her, blinking slowly. Maybe he really had been asleep. He sat up, papers sticking to his face, and stretched in his cat-like way before stumbling to his feet and taking a few steps toward the bedroom. She saw him off to bed, and turned back to look with a critical eye at the detritus of papers and books strewn across his desk. She couldn't leave it like this.

She detached one paper stuck to its mate with drool, sighed in exasperation and a little self-recognition, and began to straighten. Every so often she would glimpse words from this page ("nitrile decomposition") or that article title ("A novel method for nucleophilic substitution of organometallic compounds"), along with Edward's chicken-scratch scrawl over everything ("LiAlH4 too strong a reducing agent, you idiots") and a couple hand-drawn caricatures she recognized as Mustang in the margins.

Most of the words were gibberish to her – though she had studied the chemistry relevant to automail, she was nonetheless more at home with the physics of pressure, motion, and electromagnetism than with the chemistry of oxidation and metallic bonds. Even so, her working knowledge overlapped with Ed's a great deal, though she would never understand why he had a vendetta against lithium aluminum hydride.

Nearly finished, she picked up the last couple articles, noting that the comments were now replaced by scribbled out geometric figures and curse words. She looked closer, reading the title, and a smile stole across her lips. Apparently the Fullmetal Alchemist was having trouble with his namesake.

Recalling a certain past incident at breakfast, she smiled. Maybe she could teach _him_ something this time.

The next morning, she let him finish his coffee before sitting down next to him with a pencil and graph paper. He gave her a quizzical look.

"I couldn't help but notice that you were having trouble with the structure of binary alloys. You know Ed, this is my specialty, so I thought maybe I could help you." She hoped she didn't sound too patronizing.

The look intensified to a level she normally saw when he was involved with a particularly interesting alchemy book. Tamping down the sudden and inexplicable butterflies in her stomach, she sketched out a cube on the graph paper.

"You see, when two metallic elements are alloyed, the added element substitutes for the parent atoms in the crystal structure…"


	3. Scientist Out of his Field

**Scientist out of his field  
**

_Word count:_ 373  
_Pairing/Rating:_ Light EdWin, G

_Author's note:_ Inspired by the phrase "that question is outside the scope of my field," which I've heard many, many times. Please read and review! I love constructive criticism!

In the twilight-blue, aching nights, he wished for her presence. Alfons was amiable enough, but he desperately missed the easy camaraderie, the shared childhood experiences, and the loquacious optimism she so easily displayed.

The second time he burned himself soldering wire, he wished for her mechanical skill. He could see it so vividly in his mind, how she would seize the injured hand and examine it, tsk at him, then take the iron from his clumsy grasp and shove him out of the way so she solder it the _right _way.

When he lost his trigonometry tables for the third time, he wished for her pragmatic grasp of mathematics. His esoteric training in geometry began and ended with two-dimensional transmutation circles. She could easily eye an angle then construct a three-dimensional model in her head, far outstripping his own spatial abilities.

After drawing up the thirtieth blueprint of the rocket, he wished for her patience. Her ability to stand for hours on end into the night, installing tiny, intricate parts, was astonishing he was finding out. When his own eyes and hands failed after long hours, he began to fully realize how much dedication must have been required to construct the machines he so casually manipulated.

Whenever he saw a plane soaring in the sky above, he wished for her wonder. He could almost hear her screaming in delight at the sight of such a glorious mechanical marvel. It wouldn't be long before she would contrive a way to build it better, faster, and lighter – and then she would turn around and sassily challenge him to produce something that could fly with his precious alchemy.

However, when he and Alfons successfully tested their first rocket was when he missed her the most. As the bullet-shaped contraption soared into the sky and crossed across the sun, he shaded his eyes and thought ruefully of skin pinched by tools, eyes strained by blueprints' tiny writing, quickly snuffed fires started by the testing of the liquid propellants, and the acute proprietal sense he felt suddenly grip him as he watched his creation soar. He thought he could understand her a little better, now.

_You would be so proud of me, Winry._


End file.
